Some fear Voting Rights Act could change as provisions expire

[MelissaB]

Some fear Voting Rights Act could change as provisions expire

BY DAHLEEN GLANTON

Chicago Tribune


MARION, Ala. - (KRT) - Before the national movement began to secure voting rights for African-Americans, a quiet registration campaign started in this small Southern town where blacks were more accustomed to kneeling down to pick cotton than standing up for their civil rights.

It was here in the early 1960s that sharecroppers, maids and janitors - people who could barely read or write - began filing through the back door of the Perry County, Ala., courthouse to register to vote. One by one, they were turned down, victims of a $1.50 poll tax they could not afford and a literacy test that many uneducated whites also would have failed had they been forced to take it.

...snip

"While we are fighting for democracy in Iraq, our democracy is being threatened at home," said Jesse Jackson Sr., who will lead a voting rights rally in Atlanta next Saturday. "In 2000 in Florida, blacks were purged from the voting lists. In 2004 in Ohio, black voters were disqualified for no reason. When black registration went up, the number of voting machines in black districts went down. People waited in line for hours to vote. The elections were heavy with fraud targeting black voters."

...snip

Last year in Bayou La Batre, Ala., a fishing village where about a third of the 2,700 residents are Asian-American, the Justice Department found that Asian voters had been intimidated during a City Council primary election. Supporters of the white incumbent had challenged ballots questioning the citizenship of Asian voters and accusing them of having felony convictions. The Justice Department intervened and the first Asian-American was elected to the City Council.

And in Georgia, the Justice Department has been asked to examine a new law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, a move critics said would target minorities, the poor and the elderly.


More: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/12270239.htm